


Astronomical

by baku_midnight



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: David is charming as hell tyvm, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sappy, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 03:18:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15986510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baku_midnight/pseuds/baku_midnight
Summary: The odds of finding your soulmate when the world has been effectively reduced to a dozen people are ludicrous.





	Astronomical

**Author's Note:**

> 2 schmaltzy 4 me.

On the matter of “soulmates”, Dwight had made the perhaps unwise decision to first look into the concept in a serious capacity, followed by a second perhaps unwise decision to ask his fellow survivors their opinions. Their opinions—ranging from bemused to embarrassed, to horrified, to dreary—while making Dwight feel a little less self-conscious about his own, had also made him come to think that the whole “soulmate” thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

 

“It’s foolish, boy,” Ace had said, playing with the rim of his charming trilby, enjoying the latest of the Entity’s sporadic bounty, “why settle on just one when there’s a whole world of choices out there?”

 

“No,” Meg had answered, shaking her head and twirling the tip of her braid, “not that I would’ve noticed, anyhow.”

 

“No, okay!” Nea had nearly screamed, slamming her palms into her lap as she stood to depart, “but it doesn’t matter, now, because it’s all gone, just like everyone and everything else!”

 

“Uhm…no,” Claudette had replied, blushing.

 

“Uh, no fucking way,” Jake had barked, practically aghast.

 

Dwight himself had never found his soulmate. _Obviously_ , his mind seemed to say to him whenever he ruminated on the statistical possibility of the whole thing: supposedly, the person who had your exact matching mark was alive somewhere as long as your own mark was discernible, out there in the sea of seven billion, and if you were lucky, fate would bring him or her or them near enough to you sometime in your life. The possibility of you then managing to talk to each other, getting to know each other, and eventually showing each other your obscure indelible marks, was another statistical nightmare, honestly, given the breadth of distribution of people on the planet.

 

And now, stuck in the realm of the Entity… If life continued on earth as it had (and Dwight had to believe that it did, or he would _actually_ die, not just in the unnatural way he experienced it forwards and in reverse after every other trial), that meant that the majority of humans were now outside of his access. So, if his soulmate was among them…

 

Honestly, it was a dismal prospect.

 

It could be worse, that is, worse than knowing he was stuck in here for eternity and would never, _ever_ meet the person he loved more than any in the world, who matched the mark on the inside of his wrist and made him feel a sense of fairy-tale completeness unlike anything else. Worse than _that_ , for example, would be meeting your soulmate on earth, falling in love or at least _like_ , only to be hidden from their embrace forever.

 

Or, worse even than _that_ would be finding your soulmark on a _killer_ … The ones who savaged them every night were people, once, according to the diaries Dwight and crew scavenged, so it stood that they, too, had soulmarks somewhere under all that grime and viscera.

 

Yeah, could be worse.

 

Dwight looked at the inside of his white arm, scratching at the coil of black pigment that held beneath the skin. It was a simple but messy circle, like the stain left by a coffee mug. Mostly, it just distracted him rather than ignited his imagination. He couldn’t even dream of what kind of person his soulmate could be. Kind-hearted, or otherwise? Male, or otherwise? It really, really didn’t matter, anyway.

 

What mattered were the trials. The goddamn stupid, hateful, pointless, terrifying trials. That, and keeping the noobie alive when the bastard seemed to be hell-bent on doing the opposite.

 

David was honestly a disaster. He’d started out shoving and swinging at the other survivors the moment he landed at the campfire, trying to pick a fight with the lot of them, who in turn found any sense of aggression long since drained out of them after countless trials. Jake and Dwight shared a puzzled glance before pouncing on the newcomer, pinning him to the ground and just sitting on him until he calmed down, which turned out to happen never. David swore and fought and kicked without tiring and Dwight tried to be accepting of the fact that everyone reacted to their entrapment in different ways: he himself had cried for a few weeks straight—and was pretty much _still_ crying non-stop, only inside his head. Jake hadn’t said a word to anyone for a dozen trials after he arrived. Nea, on the other hand, had tried to climb the walls around the Asylum—it didn’t go well.

 

Being the first one to arrive made Dwight leader by default, even if that just amounted to keeping everyone else calm when the situation was dire and occasionally providing a clumsy pep-talk. But David would have none of it. He wouldn’t listen to a thing Dwight said.

 

“Who died and made _you_ boss?!” David snarled, thumbing his nose and spitting blood, and Dwight resisted the urge to say _fucking_ **all** _of us_.

 

They argued during every trial, David more often than not putting them both in danger with his noise and energy, forcing Dwight to flee and watch David run headlong into danger. As David got better at it, however, he intentionally _baited_ the killer, dashing into the monster’s line of sight and blocking blows intended for other survivors. Basically, still a disaster, but a slightly more organized one.

 

A trial opened with Dwight feeling particularly inspiring, Meg particularly fast, Jake particularly ambitious, and David…particularly injured. He was bleeding from the outset, and while still somehow quick on his feet, he was a massive liability to the team. Dwight kept an eye on the three of them, watching them skillfully duck behind logs and in between musty cattails as they ran up and down the swamp.

 

Somehow, they got the door open but David was nowhere to be seen. Dwight searched the usual hiding spots, until he heard a miserable groaning and found the brawler behind a stump, cradling his side, which was leaking blood pitifully into his cupped hand.

 

“Whadda _you_ want?” David barked, and Dwight had to gesture frantically for him to lower his voice. The telltale footfalls of the Hillbilly’s lopsided walk were drawing closer with every second.

 

“Why aren’t you going to the door?” Dwight whispered, pointing across the mud-slicked hillock to where the wall gaped and fog swirled.

 

“Because I didn’t fucking know where it was! Ever think of that?!” David hissed back, waving his hand. He winced and curled back around his side. He was clearly feeling the pain of being irreparably injured the entire trial. He was sharp and defensive as ever, even with the blood loss, and Dwight couldn’t help but feel for him.

 

“Well, now you do!” Dwight replied, ducking low when he heard a distant, aggravated chainsaw.

 

“The Neanderthal-fuck’s right out there! How’m I supposed to…to make it?” David argued, “you lot left me this whole time, didn’t know where you been…”

 

Dwight watched while David grumbled, his face unmistakeably contorted by pain and embarrassment. Brave as he was, the disaster of a man wasn’t invulnerable, and the way he looked cautiously around the stump, unlocked something in Dwight that had nothing to do with fear or injury. He was standing before he knew what came over himself.

 

“Oi, what you doing?” David hissed out, as Dwight stood to full height. Dwight could hear the Hillbilly’s lumbering, dragging steps, and the wail of his chainsaw, and he prepared to run. He ran at a full-out sprint, the way Meg had shown him, only looking over his shoulder briefly to see David limping towards the gate, his broad form eventually swallowed by the silver mist.

 

Dwight briefly understood—sensed, in some impossible way that maybe had to do with experience or just stupid, wishful thinking—that his teammates had escaped, before a chainsaw slammed into his back, shredding his clothes like paper and parting his flesh from the bone. His last thought was that at least his suffering would be quick.

 

*

 

The next thing Dwight felt were hands on his shoulders and arms, lifting him out of cold sod. The Entity always spat them back somewhere in the forest, leaving them to crawl through over the supple moss, dipping grasses and scratchy rocks, and back to the healing fire. He felt someone dragging him to his feet, meaning someone had come to find him, but as touched as he was by the gesture, he was still unbearably sore from being cut to pieces and built back together like some sort of disgusting D.Y.I.

 

“Come on, up ya get,” came a voice, which Dwight regarded with a groan.

 

“Nnmm…I’m getting, I’m getting,” he complained. His throat hurt from screaming, his back ached, his arms and legs were like jelly—and worst of all, his glasses were askew—and yet someone was compelling him to stand. His saviour was a fucking idiot.

 

“Surprised the shit out of me,” the voice continued, “was not expecting that, mate.”

 

“I’m…sorry, I guess?” Dwight groaned. He shuddered at the feel of cold air on his bare belly. He tugged his shirt back down and into place when he was fully upright, inspecting his clothes with his hands. He’d scuffed his brand-new skinny jeans—a strange offering that appeared from nowhere. He straightened his glasses and the looming form of David came into view, his eye bruised and his lip swollen but looking little worse for wear, with no blood streaming out of anywhere and, remarkably, no fury on his face. He looked almost…happy.

 

“Ain’t no one ever stood up for me before,” David said, “always been me doin’ the standin’.”

 

Dwight slowly felt the cold air of reality filter back into his senses. He nodded, dumbly, as David held out a hand to him to shake. Dwight peered down at it for a moment. It was…unexpected, but even more unexpected was the look of admiration and affection and maybe even a bit of _awe_ visible on David’s angular face.

 

“No problem,” Dwight replied, taking David’s hand. David gripped back, hard, and held on long. Dwight glanced down and his own circular soulmark peering back at him, but David was too focused on his face to see anything but. “I’m sure you woulda done the same.”

 

“I would,” David nodded, finally releasing Dwight’s hand after a long, long moment, “I really would.”

 

*

 

After that, the flirting started. It was a welcome change to Dwight’s usual routine of receiving casual platitudes from Claudette, snarky remarks from Jake and frankly inappropriate comments from Ace—and even though Dwight couldn’t help but blush sometimes, David was fairly tasteful in his come-ons.

 

“If you were a killer monster, what d’you be?” David asked, walking briskly alongside Dwight and wrapping his knuckles. Whom or what he intended to hit, Dwight didn’t want to know.

 

“A vampire, so I could turn into a bat and fly away from you,” Dwight teased as he searched for a medical kit for Claudette among their pile of artifacts gathered in trials.

 

“Oh, yeah?” David answered, “’cause I’d be a zombie, so I could eat you up, mate.”

 

Dwight chuckled, stepping around David, who was waggling his eyebrows, “well, I’m pretty sure we’re all technically dead, so.”

 

“Dead _sexy_ ,” David answered, tightening his bandage with his teeth and giving a bit of a theatrical growl. Dwight laughed.

 

Trials went a lot easier with the two of them on the same side, David now following his advice. He still charged into the path of danger far too often, but David was improving.

 

Dwight definitely enjoyed David’s humour and his confidence, and his looks weren’t anything to sneeze at. He looked a bit of a meat-head with his childish buzz-cut, but Dwight liked when he grew out his beard and undercut. Likewise, when Dwight decided to shave his head and was feeling more than a little regret from the loss, David told him he looked like the “sexiest teacher’s aide he’d ever seen”.

 

The changes in their appearances shifted with the whim of the Entity, but what little choice they had over something as small as haircuts and shirts was uplifting. Just as uplifting was having an ally in the Realm—someone who had Dwight’s back, even if it was because he kept checking out his backside.

 

*

 

The trial did not go well. No one was used to the location and even though three of them got out, they lost the newcomer to a stupid mistake. No one felt good about it.

 

“What the fuck was that?!” David barked, as they broke through the mist and found the campfire again. Feng covered her ears and ran off; Dwight doubled over, his hands on his knees.

 

“I don’t…I don’t know, it was just too fast,” Dwight answered, his eyes filling with water. He felt David’s hands on his upper arms, dragging him straight. He let himself be pulled upright, struggling to meet David’s frantic eyes.

 

“You were…you were right behind me, and then…” David panted, his hot breath washing over Dwight’s face, making him wince. “Couldn’t see or hear you, didn’t even…”

 

Dwight nodded, tears dripping down his nose. He felt the adrenaline of the trial slowly clearing from his system, like a forest fire leaving nothing but smoldering ash behind. He was cleared-out, drained, and his hands started to tremble. He felt David’s hands on his arms shaking in kind.

 

“Didn’t wanna lose you,” Dwight heard David say, more quietly and tenderly than anything he’d heard before. Before he knew it he was leaning in, nudging David’s cheek with his nose, and pressing their lips together. It was light, just a reassuring sort of caress, but it took David only a split-second to run with it.

 

David turned his head, parting his lips and locking them with Dwight’s, after a moment pushing them open with his tongue and sliding it across his upper lip. His hand came up behind Dwight’s head, holding him closer and pressing against his mouth over and over. David tasted sharp, masculine, and Dwight felt his knees getting weak, adrenaline seeping slowly back into his system, but for another reason.

 

“I…” David muttered, between a fervent kiss that stole Dwight’s breath, and another that was just a soft peck to his bottom lip, “I can’t stop.”

 

Dwight’s belly tightened, his knees trembling. He clutched a hand in David’s jacket.

 

“Then don’t,” Dwight replied breathlessly, and then David was dragging him by the sleeve across the camp.

 

They pulled each other along, stumbling over rocks and roots and past their bewildered fellow survivors, out of sight of the fire and into the shade of a broad cedar. David shrugged out of his jacket—a flamboyant thing produced by the Entity in one of its more festive moods—and placed it against the rough bark of the tree, and Dwight gladly settled in, falling back against it just in time for David to pounce on him.

 

“S’been so long,” David breathed, pushing his angular nose into Dwight’s neck, sniffing beneath his ear, and planting kisses all up and down his throat. “Dunno if I…”

 

“Yeah, yeah, me too,” Dwight answered senselessly, vaguely aware of what he was agreeing to—something about being desperate for a gentle touch after ages of rough handling by murderous monsters. He reached around David’s waist and pulled up his shirt, rolling the hem up over his broad back. David gave a sound somewhere between a growl and a whine when he was forced to pull away long enough to get the shirt over his head, but the effort was worth it, Dwight realized when he saw the muscles David was hiding under his baggy clothes.

 

“Um…” Dwight mumbled, placing a hand on David’s stomach, feeling hard abdominal muscles heave beneath heated skin. He trailed his hand lower, hooking his fingers into David’s belt and yanking him close again. David’s arms came around his shoulders once more, embracing him tightly and covering him with more kisses. Dwight kissed back, eyes squeezing shut as a tooth fiercely pierced his bottom lip.

 

“ _Mmm_ okay,” Dwight mumbled, “okay, okay,” he pressed back against David’s belly, practically swooning at the texture of his muscles, impelling him to sit up on his knees. Dwight undid David’s slacks and pulled them open, squeezing the hefty bulge he found there, barely restrained by the thin cotton of his briefs. He pulled David out like opening a gift, to find him already hard and dark with arousal.

 

One-handed, Dwight worked himself out of his new jeans—they looked sweet, but _damn_ they were tight—and squeezed the two of them together, taking himself and David in one grip.

 

“Shit, jeezus, _God,_ mate,” David swore, planting his hand on the tree above Dwight’s head to support himself. He let out a shuddering breath and slid his hips forward into Dwight’s abdomen, fitting his legs firmly between Dwight’s spread knees. Just the implication of David’s hips pushing against the back of his thighs made Dwight’s head swim. David rocked forward into Dwight’s hand, bracing himself on his elbow and leaning in.

 

“You wanna…the whole way?” David asked, biting hard on his lip and sucking in a deep breath as Dwight started to move his hands, gently twisting his grip.

 

“No time,” Dwight shook his head, practically frantic. He wanted to feel David inside him—God knows it would be a welcome change to the various blades and other implements he’d had shoved in him lately—so much it was practically consuming him, and he knew David wanted it, too, given the way he’d dug his boots into the ground, parted his knees and was pushing hard against Dwight’s hips. But he didn’t think either of them would be able to last long enough for it. And pulling away, right now, even just for the time it took to throw his skinny jeans over his shoulder, would be agony.

 

“Touch me, please,” Dwight uttered near David’s chin and David nodded, using one hand to hike up his sweater and the other to press into Dwight’s ribs, then lead his hand down and settle on Dwight’s hip, eventually finding their dicks sliding sloppily together. He rubbed his palm over the heads and Dwight grunted and bucked his hips, his legs dropping automatically wider.

 

“Fuck, I’m almost there,” David hissed out, almost in apology, squeezing his eyes shut. Dwight kissed his eyelid, then his cheeks and mouth, feeling sandpapery stubble against his nose.

 

“Me too,” Dwight nodded, speeding up until his hands were flying over them, his forearms burning and shaking and heat coiling in his spine. David caught his mouth in a powerful kiss, spreading Dwight’s lips and pressing his tongue in deep. They joined a single rhythm, sliding against each other, hips rocking, up and up and up until suddenly Dwight saw the stars a lot closer as he peaked, groaning as he spilled against his belly. David joined seconds after, breaking suddenly from their molten-lava kiss to gasp out in completion.

 

David dropped his forehead against Dwight’s as they panted their way back down. The forest slowly came back into view as Dwight returned to his body, stars sparkling far above him.

 

“Wow…” David said as he kissed Dwight’s cheek.

 

“Yeah,” Dwight chuckled, looking down at the spill on his sweater. David helped him peel out of it, leaving him in his white button-up, and David still wonderfully shirtless. They rearranged the jacket on the ground so that they could both lay on it, spooned together with Dwight at David’s back, with his arms wrapped around David’s belly so he could enjoy his muscles a little longer.

 

Dwight felt David relax beneath him, his breathing growing deep and even in sleep, and he was glad for it. David, who was high-strung since the second he arrived, who was in a constant state of “fight-or-flight” with no chance at flight, who consequently became as soft as a puppy made of marshmallows when Dwight just showed him just a tiny bit of kindness—he was finally getting a chance to rest. Dwight meant to join him, but his heart was still racing and his stomach still tight. It had been so long since he’d had something like this, something nice and comforting and soft, he was at once afraid of it ending, and afraid of it lasting.

 

He traced patterns in David’s back with his index finger, softly, carefully. The muscles in David’s shoulders stretched and softened beautifully with his breath, and Dwight’s finger glided down the stripe of his spine like water. He took in the bruises, cuts and scars—including the big one through the top of his lung which all of the survivors now sported—that decorated David’s skin like a story. One on his shoulder was particularly vibrant.

 

Dwight sat up on one elbow to inspect the mark better. At first, it looked like a bruise, but it was too dark and too symmetrical. It looked a lot like…

 

No way.

 

He extended his forearm to compare it against his own mark. It matched in shape, size and colour.

 

No goddamn way.

 

It matched. That meant… No, it couldn’t be. It felt suddenly like a weight falling on him, like those seven billion humans and their absurd statistics landed on him all at once and he needed to flee lest it crushed him. His breath became shorter like he’d run a marathon, and he suddenly had the urge to hide in a cupboard for literally the rest of time, since apparently that was how long he was going to spend here, in this goddamned forest with the capricious fucking Entity.

 

Cautiously, Dwight untangled himself from David, relieved when he didn’t wake, and hurried back to the campfire. He walked right past it, however, trailing the curious stares of his cohorts, including the again-alive Noobie (it’s not like Dwight could exactly remember his name right now, not with decidedly bigger things on his mind) and wandering into the woods. He knew he would eventually be dragged back, and that was the horror of it, but he walked out as far as he could go until the Entity eventually caught up with him and forced him back to face what came.

 

Surely, this was the Entity’s fault. The math was sound; it was just so unbearably unlikely that his soulmate would just appear in the Forest by accident, without something having planned it. Somehow, the source of Dwight’s nightmares knew that there was another option, aside from losing your soulmate or being stranded away from him:

 

It was being stuck with him for eternity.

 

Dwight stopped, then, settling down on a mossy log. The thoughts in his head sounded nasty, hateful. How could he abandon his soulmate so quickly? This was the man he was supposed to love more than any other! But there it was—the “supposed to”. The responsibility. The thing Dwight had never done well. First, they made him leader to this group of people, responsible for their pain and suffering, when he himself _barely_ knew what he was doing—and now, he was responsible for something even bigger? Something unique to him, something no other human on earth could do?

 

Maybe that was it. This was really his duty. His alone, and not just because he was first. But because he was born with that mark on his skin. Born at the right time to suffer—gosh, he did _not_ want to drag fate into this. But there it was. In there already.

 

This was permanent.

 

*

 

Dwight became a wreck whenever David was around after their first time, nearly jumping out of his skin at a gentle touch on his shoulder and avoiding any piercing looks. David stood aside, hands raised in surrender.

 

“Whoa, sorry, love,” he muttered, looking Dwight up and down, “guess you’re having second thoughts, eh?”

 

“No!” Dwight yelped, “I mean, _yes_ , sorry.” The hurt look on David’s features was disheartening as all hell, but it wasn’t as bad as the resigned nod he gave in tandem. He looked like he knew this was going to happen all along, that he would have his heart broken but charged into it anyway.

 

But how was Dwight supposed to respond? “Sorry, but I noticed you’re my ‘The One’ and I ran away because it was too much obligation, but don’t worry, I really liked kissing you and touching you and having sex with you.” It sounded disastrous no matter how he spun it.

 

They watched each other over the campfire, Dwight shovelling logs in so that the flames rose higher and obscured David more, but it was no use. In the next trial, Dwight considered going “Dead Hard”, as David called it, just to avoid feeling David’s healing hands on him. Dwight curled up against a log at the fire when they returned, pillowing his miserable head in his hands. But it didn’t seem to help. There was no escape.

 

“Alright, what is it, mate?” David asked, stomping across the ashen clearing and standing over Dwight’s fetal form. He threw out his arms. “It something I said? Something on my face? What?”

 

Dwight rolled over to sit up, straightening his glasses. He heaved a deep breath. He rolled up his sleeve.

 

“This look familiar?” Dwight asked, extending his arm. Though unchanging, the mark seemed to turn like a black hole, a singularity, sucking in everything it touched.

 

David raised an eyebrow, reaching for his shoulder. “That’s the…” he trailed off helplessly as his fingers touched down where his own soulmark was. He seemed to realize immediately because the same “hit with the weight of the entire world” look appeared on his face too, and he went suddenly pale.

 

David gawped for a moment before shutting his mouth tight, nodding soundlessly. “I, uh…”

 

They looked at each other for another long moment, commiserating even though this was supposed to be a joyous occasion. Finding your soulmate. It should’ve been easy.

 

David shook his head, suddenly, and made fists. “It’s just a mark, mate. Just a mark.”

 

Dwight tilted his head, wrapping his arms around his bent knees.

 

“How about this mark, eh?” David asked as he was un-tucking and pulling up his shirt, the smart black button-up he’d been capriciously gifted. A small pink line showed just above his right hip. “Got this when I got up in this chav’s face at a pub. It was afterhours and he wouldn’t leave this girl alone, and I was tired of it. Next thing I know he pulls out a knife and sticks me.”

 

Dwight’s breath caught in his throat.

 

“Or, you seen this one?” David went on, undoing a few buttons to reveal a wide, diamond-shaped patch of damaged flesh over his left ribs. “Got this from a guy owed me money. I went to collect and he wasn’t too happy to see me.”

 

“Or this,” David touched the back of his neck, just below the ear where his tattoo was. “I got this after the Kingsland Clan brought me into their gang. Hadda do some shady shit to get their attention.”

 

David stood, exposed, arms spread wide. “Whaddya think of those marks, huh?”

 

Dwight shook his head. “It’s not… I wouldn’t judge you for… whatever marks are on your body don’t make you who you are. I don’t care what kind of scars you have, David.”

 

David squared his jaw.

 

“Good. ’Cause I made ’em all up.”

 

David pointed to the three marks again, from hip to rib to neck, saying quickly, “appendix out, rugby cleat, and bought on me 19th birthday with me daddy’s money because I was a spoiled goddamn twat.”

 

Dwight stared. He could see the unease on David’s face. He remembered the man who dragged himself, bleeding, through the trial, running out into the open rather than hiding like he could’ve, so determined to show that he wasn’t hurt.

 

“You hear what I’m saying, love? It don’t matter.” David thumbed his nose, leaving his shirt hanging half-buttoned and half-tucked. “They’re just marks. Mean as much as we make ’em mean.”

 

Dwight sighed. Falling for someone shouldn’t feel so easy, his mind seemed to tell him, considering all of the possibilities. The seven billion people, all the myriad things that could go wrong…

 

Well, the Entity had certainly narrowed things down for him a lot.

 

He stood and walked to David, reaching for his shirt, carefully redoing the buttons and tucking it back into his waistband. David watched him, smart eyes tracing across his face. Dwight watched back.

 

“The mark doesn’t mean anything but what we decide it means,” Dwight agreed, placing a hand on David’s cheek. David leaned softly into his touch.

 

“Right,” David whispered, “and if it means I get ta be closer to you, I’d have another. Plaster my whole body with ’em!”

 

“Then you really would look like a monster,” Dwight teased, and leaned forward to kiss him. David smiled broadly into the kiss.

 

*

 

Dwight didn’t learn his lesson from the first time and asked his fellow survivors what they would do if they found their soulmates. Their opinions—ranging from optimistic, to flabbergasted, to dreamy—filled him with frankly undue confidence as he sat at the fireside, with two fingers wrapped tightly around David’s thumb.

 

“How wonderful,” Ace mused, “I would shower her with all of the gifts in the world. Get her tied down, you know.”

 

“What if ‘she’ was a ‘he’?” Nea asked, and Ace raised his eyebrow, his lip curling in contemplation.

 

“I’d lose my shit,” Jake answered pragmatically, and Meg gave a much more concise “I don’t know.”

 

Nea shrugged. “I guess, if everything else is gone, it’d be nice to have something to hold onto. Something to know is permanent.”

 

Dwight nodded. Something poetic didn’t come to mind for his own answer. He looked around at his compatriots seated, suddenly doe-eyed and dreamy, around him.

 

David wrapped his arm around Dwight’s waist, pressing gently into the opposite hip with his fingertips. The casual intimacy was nice—and much better than the reality-rending bigness of their coupling that he’d feared. He felt David breath beside him, nudging the top of his hair with his nose, and beamed.

 

Somehow, even though the world was a lot smaller, it suddenly felt a lot bigger.


End file.
